ExxonMobil Will Comply With LGBT Employment Executive Order

Jonathan Higbee | July 23, 2014

ExxonMobil has had it share of (deserved) beef from the gay community over the years, but its decision to immediately comply with President Obama's executive order installing federal workplace protections for the LGBT could be the start of a new chapter.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has said it will comply with the new protections for gay and transgender employees required of federal contractors, while still sidestepping the question of whether it will formalize that by changing the language of its corporate policy.

Following President Barack Obama's signing of an executive order Monday expanding protections for federal workers and contractors from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, the Labor Department has 90 days to issue regulations for how employers must comply.

Exxon, which according to government records won more than $480 million in federal contracts in 2013 and more than $8 billion since 2006, has long resisted pressure from civil rights groups and shareholders to enumerate such protections in its formal policy.

The world's biggest oil and gas company by market value will continue to "abide by the law," spokesman Alan Jeffers said Tuesday.

He wouldn't say if that meant changing the language in the company's formal equal employment opportunity policy, but stressed that Exxon prohibits "discrimination on any basis."

A few months ago, in May, Exxon shareholders voted for the 15th consecutive year in a row to not add sexual orientation to its list of classes protected from discrimination.